Filed: Jun. 29, 2006
Latest Update: Mar. 02, 2020
Summary: Opinions of the United 2006 Decisions States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit 6-29-2006 Williams v. Consovoy Precedential or Non-Precedential: Precedential Docket No. 04-3569 Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_2006 Recommended Citation "Williams v. Consovoy" (2006). 2006 Decisions. Paper 782. http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_2006/782 This decision is brought to you for free and open access by the Opinions of the Uni
Summary: Opinions of the United 2006 Decisions States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit 6-29-2006 Williams v. Consovoy Precedential or Non-Precedential: Precedential Docket No. 04-3569 Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_2006 Recommended Citation "Williams v. Consovoy" (2006). 2006 Decisions. Paper 782. http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_2006/782 This decision is brought to you for free and open access by the Opinions of the Unit..
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Opinions of the United
2006 Decisions States Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit
6-29-2006
Williams v. Consovoy
Precedential or Non-Precedential: Precedential
Docket No. 04-3569
Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_2006
Recommended Citation
"Williams v. Consovoy" (2006). 2006 Decisions. Paper 782.
http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_2006/782
This decision is brought to you for free and open access by the Opinions of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit at Villanova
University School of Law Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in 2006 Decisions by an authorized administrator of Villanova
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PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No. 04-3569
JOHN C. WILLIAMS,
Appellant
v.
ANDREW CONSOVOY;
ROLANDO GOMEZ-RIVERA;
RACHEL TORRES-CHOWANIEC;
RUBY WASHINGTON;
DON E. GIBBONS;
KEVIN MAHONEY;
NEW JERSEY STATE PAROLE BOARD
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of New Jersey
(D.C. Civil No. 01-cv-01809)
District Judge: Honorable Mary Little Cooper
Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
June 29, 2006
Before: BARRY, VAN ANTWERPEN, and JOHN R.
GIBSON,* Circuit Judges
*
The Honorable John R. Gibson, Circuit Judge for the
United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, sitting by
designation.
(Filed: June 29, 2006 )
Stephen M. Latimer
Loughlin & Latimer
Hackensack, NJ 07601
Counsel for Appellant
Zulima V. Farber
Attorney General of New Jersey
Lisa A. Puglisi
Deputy Attorney General
Patrick DeAlmeida
Assistant Attorney General
Richard J. Hughes Justice Complex
Trenton, NJ 08625
Counsel for Appellees Andrew Consovoy, Rolando
Gomex-Rivera, Rachel Torres-Chowaniec, Ruby
Washington, Kevin Mahoney, and the New Jersey State
Parole Board
Daniel R. Esposito
Kalison, McBride, Jackson & Murphy, P.A.
Warren, NJ 07059
Counsel for Appellee Donald E. Gibbons, Ph.D.
OPINION OF THE COURT
VAN ANTWERPEN, Circuit Judge.
Before us is John Williams’s appeal from the District
Court’s dismissal of his claims asserted under 42 U.S.C. § 1983
against a New Jersey parole officer and certain members of the
New Jersey State Parole Board (“Parole Board”) for,
2
respectively, arrest and false incarceration, and failure to
properly investigate the likelihood he would commit a crime if
released on parole. Williams also appeals from the District
Court’s grant of summary judgment on his § 1983 claim against
a private psychologist engaged by the Parole Board to perform a
psychological evaluation. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28
U.S.C. § 1291, and for the following reasons, we will affirm.
I.
In 1993, Williams pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual
assault against a ten-year old girl, N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2b, pursuant to
a plea agreement. In 1995, Williams was sentenced to a 10-year
period of incarceration with no period of parole ineligibility, but
in 1996, Williams was released on parole.
In 1997, Parole Officer Kevin Mahoney arrested Williams
as a parole violator for Williams’s failure to obtain approval for
a change in his employment and residence and for failure to
comply with the registration provisions of Megan’s Law. On
November 26, 1997, an Adult Panel of the New Jersey State
Parole Board (“Parole Board”) composed of Andrew Consovoy
and Rolando Gomez-Rivera revoked Williams’s parole. In
3
reaching this decision, the Parole Board considered and rejected
the report of Officer Diane Formica, who recommended
Williams’s parole be continued because he had expressed
remorse for his failure to comply with the conditions of his
parole. The Parole Board then declared Williams ineligible for
parole until 1998.
In April 1998, an Adult Panel of the Parole Board – this
time consisting of Rachel Torres-Chowaniec and Ruby
Washington – again evaluated Williams for parole. Before
rendering a decision, the Parole Board ordered a psychological
evaluation of Williams.
This evaluation was performed by Don E. Gibbons,
Ph.D., a licensed psychologist employed at the time by
Correctional Behavior Solutions, a private company with which
New Jersey contracted to provide mental health services. In the
course of his evaluation, Gibbons performed a clinical interview
and administered various psychological and personality
4
examinations. Relying in part on Gibbons’s evaluation, the
Parole Board denied parole.1
On April 18, 2001, Williams filed an action pursuant to
42 U.S.C. § 1983 in the District Court, asserting four separate
claims. First, Williams alleged Mahoney had seized him without
probable cause and caused him to be arrested and falsely
incarcerated, which seizure was in violation of the Fourth and
Eighth Amendments. Second, Williams alleged Consovoy and
Gomez-Rivera, on or before November 27, 1997, failed and
refused to conduct an adequate investigation into whether
Williams was likely to commit a crime if released on parole and
caused him to be falsely incarcerated, which failure was
deliberately indifferent to Williams’s Eighth Amendment right to
be free from cruel and unusual punishment. Third, Williams
alleged Torres-Chowaniec and Washington, on or before April
27, 1999, failed to adequately investigate whether Williams was
1
This denial was eventually reversed on appeal by the New
Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division in Williams v. N.J. State
Parole Board,
763 A.2d 747 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. 2000), in
which that court concluded the Parole Board’s finding that
Williams would commit another crime if released was not
supported by credible record evidence.
5
likely to commit another crime if released on parole, which
failure caused Williams’s false incarceration and was
deliberately indifferent to his Eighth Amendment rights. Finally,
Williams alleged that Gibbons had reported false and misleading
information intended to cause the Parole Board to deny Williams
parole, which denial resulted in Williams’s false imprisonment
and was deliberately indifferent to Williams’s Eighth
Amendment rights.
Gomez-Rivera, Torres-Chowaniec, Washington, and
Mahoney moved to dismiss Williams’s complaint pursuant to
Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). The District Court granted the motion
with respect to Mahoney and Gomez-Rivera on the ground that
Williams did not have a cognizable § 1983 claim against them.2
2
With respect to Torres-Chowaniec and Washington, the
District Court concluded that those defendants were not entitled to
absolute immunity in that although those defendants had performed
adjudicative duties in deciding to deny Williams parole for which
duties they were entitled to absolute immunity, those defendants
had also performed investigative functions with regard to their
failure to conduct an adequate investigation. On appeal, this Court
disagreed and directed the District Court to enter summary
judgment on Williams’s claims against them on the ground that
Torres-Chowaniec and Washington were entitled to absolute
immunity because the acts they performed were wholly
adjudicative in nature. Williams v. Consovoy, et al., 53 Fed. Appx.
664, 665 (3d Cir. 2002) (Becker, J.) (bench order).
6
Citing Heck v. Humphrey,
512 U.S. 477 (1994), the District
Court reasoned that William’s claim was uncognizable because
§ 1983 actions in which prisoners allege that a parole revocation
decision was constitutionally infirm are challenges to the fact or
duration of their confinement and are collateral attacks on state
convictions that are properly addressed in habeas corpus
proceedings. See Dist. Ct. Nov. 8, 2001 Slip. Op. at 9-17.
Gibbons then moved for summary judgment on
Williams’s § 1983 claim. On July 29, 2004, the District Court
granted Gibbons’s motion. Williams v. Consovoy, et al., 333 F.
Supp.2d 297 (D.N.J. 2004). In that decision, the District Court
concluded that because the Parole Board had ordered Gibbons to
perform an evaluation to assist the Parole Board in making its
parole determination, Gibbons had engaged in “adjudicative
conduct” and was therefore entitled to absolute immunity.
Id. at
301-02. By the parties’ agreement, the District Court dismissed
Williams’s remaining claims on August 25, 2004. This timely
appeal followed.
II.
A.
7
Williams first claims that the District Court was mistaken
in dismissing his claims against Mahoney and Gomez-Rivera on
the ground that those claims were barred by Heck v. Humphrey.
We exercise plenary review over the District Court’s grant of a
motion to dismiss under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). County
Concrete Corp. v. Town of Roxbury,
442 F.3d 159, 163 (3d Cir.
2006).
It is well-settled that when a state prisoner is challenging
the fact or duration of his confinement, his sole federal remedy is
a writ of habeas corpus, not a § 1983 action. Preiser v.
Rodriguez,
411 U.S. 475, 500 (1973). In Heck, the Supreme
Court held that where success in a § 1983 action would
implicitly call into question the validity of conviction or duration
of sentence, the plaintiff must first achieve favorable termination
of his available state or federal habeas remedies to challenge the
underlying conviction or sentence. Considering Heck and
summarizing the interplay between habeas and § 1983 claims,
the Supreme Court recently explained that,
“a state prisoner’s § 1983 action is barred (absent prior
invalidation) – no matter the relief sought (damages or
equitable relief), no matter the target of the prisoner’s suit
(state conduct leading to conviction or internal prison
8
proceedings) – if success in that action would necessarily
demonstrate the invalidity of the confinement or its
duration.”
Wilkinson v. Dotson,
544 U.S. 74, 81-82 (2005) (emphasis in
original).
Thus, the threshold question becomes whether Williams’s
success on his § 1983 action would “necessarily demonstrate”
the invalidity of the Parole Board’s decision to revoke his parole,
which would in turn render his § 1983 action uncognizable under
Heck. We answer this question in the affirmative because
success on the § 1983 claim would necessarily demonstrate the
invalidity of the Parole Board’s decision. See White v. Gittens,
121 F.3d 803, 807 (1st Cir. 1997) (concluding that § 1983 claim
based on revocation of parole was barred by Heck; “[a]
favorable decision in the § 1983 proceeding would necessarily
call into question the validity of the state’s decree revoking
[plaintiff’s] parole and ordering him back to prison. Heck
therefore applies, and the § 1983 action is not cognizable in a
federal court”); Butterfield v. Bail,
120 F.3d 1024, 1024 (9th Cir.
1997) (“[f]ew things implicate the validity of continued
confinement more directly than the allegedly improper denial of
9
parole”). Accordingly, because the Parole Board’s decision has
not been rendered invalid, Williams may not attack it via a §
1983 action, and the District Court’s dismissal of Williams’s
claims against Mahoney and Gomez-Rivera was proper.
Williams cites Huang v. Johnson,
251 F.3d 65 (2d Cir.
2001), as support for the argument that because habeas relief is
no longer available to him, he should nonetheless be permitted to
maintain a § 1983 action. Huang held that a plaintiff for whom
habeas relief was no longer available on the ground that he had
been released from custody could nevertheless maintain a § 1983
action for false imprisonment.
Id. at 75. Huang relied on the
fact that, post-Heck, five Justices took the view in Spencer v.
Kemna,
523 U.S. 1 (1998), that § 1983 relief should be available
to address constitutional wrongs where habeas relief is no longer
available.
Huang, 251 F.3d at 75.
We decline to adopt Huang here. As we recently held in
Gilles v. Davis,
427 F.3d 197, 210 (3d Cir. 2005), a § 1983
remedy is not available to a litigant to whom habeas relief is no
longer available. In Gilles, we concluded that Heck’s favorable-
termination requirement had not been undermined, and, to the
10
extent that its validity was called into question by Spencer, we
observed that the Justices who believed § 1983 claims should be
allowed to proceed where habeas relief is not available so stated
in concurring and dissenting opinions in Spencer, not in a
cohesive majority opinion.
Gilles, 427 F.3d at 209-10. Thus,
because the Supreme Court had not squarely held post-Heck that
the favorable-termination rule does not apply to defendants no
longer in custody, we declined in Gilles to extend the rule of
Heck, and likewise decline to extend it here. See
Gilles, 427
F.3d at 210-11.
B.
Williams next claims the District Court erred in granting
summary judgment on his § 1983 claims against Gibbons. We
exercise plenary review over the District Court's grant of
summary judgment, County Concrete
Corp., 442 F.3d at 163,
and disagree.
While § 1983 makes no mention of an immunity defense,
an official is immune from a § 1983 suit if she was “accorded
immunity from tort actions at common law when the Civil
Rights Act was enacted in 1871.” Malley v. Briggs,
475 U.S.
11
335, 340 (1986). Nevertheless, even if an official did not enjoy
absolute immunity at common law, she may still be entitled to
absolute immunity if she performs “special functions” that are
analogous to those functions that would have been immune from
tort actions at the time Congress enacted § 1983. Hughes v.
Long,
242 F.3d 121, 125 (3d Cir. 2001) (citing Butz v.
Economou,
438 U.S. 478, 506, 508 (1978)). This immunity
“was and is considered necessary ‘to assure that judges,
advocates, and witnesses can perform their respective functions
without harassment or intimidation.’” McArdle v. Tronetti,
961
F.2d 1083, 1084 (3d Cir. 1992) (Alito, J.) (quoting
Butz, 438
U.S. at 512). Accordingly, absolute immunity attaches to those
who perform functions integral to the judicial process. Burns v.
Reed,
500 U.S. 478, 484 (1991).
Under this “functional” approach, courts look to the
nature of the functions being performed by the actor in question
and evaluate the effect that exposure to liability would have on
an appropriate exercise of that function.
Hughes, 242 F.3d at
125. Applying this approach, courts conclude that individuals
who perform investigative or evaluative functions at a
12
governmental adjudicative entity’s request to assist that entity in
its decisionmaking process are entitled to absolute immunity.
See
McArdle, 961 F.2d at 1085 (psychiatrist who performed
evaluation of prisoner at court’s request entitled to absolute
immunity); Morstad v. Dep’t of Corr. & Rehab.,
147 F.3d 741,
744 (8th Cir. 1998) (psychologist who performed evaluation of
sex offender at court’s request entitled to absolute immunity).
Applying this “functional” approach, we conclude that
Gibbons performed a function integral to the judicial process and
is therefore situated similarly to the mental health professionals
in McArdle and Morstad to whom absolute immunity from §
1983 claims attached. Like those individuals, Gibbons
performed an evaluation and presented his findings to the
adjudicative Parole Board, which then relied on his report and
expertise in reaching its ultimate decision to deny Williams
parole. Like the District Court, we believe that by preparing his
report at the Parole Board’s request to assist in its
decision-making, Gibbons acted as “an arm of the court,”
McCardle, 961 F.2d at 1085, and is therefore entitled to absolute
immunity from Williams’s § 1983 action.
13
Williams argues Gibbons should not be entitled to
absolute immunity because Gibbons did not make an explicit
recommendation as to whether or not to parole Williams. We
find this argument unpersuasive on the ground that the only way
to ensure unvarnished, objective evaluations from
court-appointed professionals is to afford them absolute
immunity from suit for performing evaluations, regardless of
whether those evaluations are ultimately found dispositive by the
entity that requested them or are ultimately found lacking. See
Moses v. Parwatikar,
813 F.2d 891, 892 (8th Cir. 1987)
(observing that by failing to afford absolute liability from § 1983
actions to court-appointed mental professionals, the threat of
civil liability could “taint” the professionals’ opinions and “[t]he
disinterested objectivity, so necessary to an accurate competency
determination, will be lost”); cf.
Burns, 500 U.S. at 484
(observing that “it is ‘better to leave unredressed the wrongs
done by dishonest officers than to subject those who try to do
their duty to the constant dread of retaliation’”) (citation
omitted).
III.
14
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that Williams’s §
1983 action against the Parole Board members is foreclosed by
Heck and reiterate that § 1983 suits that would otherwise be
barred by Heck are not cognizable merely because habeas relief
is no longer available to the plaintiff. We also conclude that
Gibbons is entitled to absolute immunity from § 1983 liability
because his actions of evaluating Williams and preparing a
report of that evaluation were performed at the Parole Board’s
request to assist in its adjudicative function of evaluating
Williams’s eligibility for parole. Accordingly, we will affirm the
District Court.
15